Lake City Brass

[280Ackley]

I found a good buy on 300 pieces of LC 30-06 brass at gun show yesterday. I am new to using mil surplus. I have several questions. The headstamp shows L C and two numbers. Do these numbers represent the year of mfg? If so does this brass need to be seperated into year groups for loading? I know that there is a primer crimp. I don't own a swage, but I do have an RCBS casemaster prep tool. Can the crimp be removed with this tool? Anyother cheap way to remove it without ordering a new tool?

[sundog]

Unless you are planning on using for match brass in an exceptionally good custom gun (in which case I'd be using different brass), I'd just weight segregate, looking for way heavy or way light odd balls, cull them for something else and move on.

Primer pocket crimp really should be swaged or removed with tool designed for to do that. I've used a neck chamfer tool, and while it works, the better 2 two ways are aforementioned. I've even used a pocket knife and a utility knife and simply cut out the crimp. If you weigh your brass try alternate methods on a few culls.

[wiljen]

The 2 digits on milspec 30-06 brass is a year code. I have a good bit of LC 68, LC 69, and LC 68 Match. It is good brass but needs to be annealed periodically and has less internal capacity than commercial brass so reducing loads by 1 or 2 grains is probably a good starting point.

Buy one of the little RCBS manual crimp removers and put it in your drill and it makes short work of the crimps. Then weigh the cases and sort by 5gr groups. I wouldn't worry about the date codes but would worry about differences in weight as it usually is indicative of a difference in internal capacity.

[atr]

+1 about buying the proper manual crimp removers. RCBS makes a good one.

+1 about the reduced internal case capacity and therefore starting with slightly reduced loads.

GI brass tends to be less workable than commercial brass and the neck needs to be annealed more often....other than that its great brass......

[280Ackley]

Thank you for the information. I ordered a RCBS from Midsouth yesterday. Although it does raise the price of this brass by a 75% it's still cheaper than comercial brass.

[acemedic13]

I xxxxxxxx

[Hang Fire]

Lee makes a neat little chamfer tool for about 3 bucks. Does case mouths inside/out and primer pocket crimp removal.

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